"Bernard will be probably the most missed person in this legislature that I can think of — ever," said Sen. Gary Simpson, R-Milford, the minority leader. "He is absolutely beloved, regardless of party lines."

Secretary of the Senate Bernard Brady busy keeping up with pending legislation on June 30, 2006, ...more

Secretary of the Senate Bernard Brady busy keeping up with pending legislation on June 30, 2006, with then Lt. Gov. John Carney, Jr. in background.

The News Journal/Gary Emeigh

The first thing anyone who works with Brady will tell you is how hard he works. He famously spends many nights in Legislative Hall, using a shower in a bathroom in the corner of the basement, sleeping in his office and cooking on a humble little stovetop in a caucus room.

"I told him 'Bernard, we can buy you a real stove,'" said Sen. Margaret Rose Henry, D-Wilmington, the majority leader. "But he just said 'oh, I wouldn't want to spend money like that.' That's the kind of saint he is."

The second thing people will tell you about Brady is that he is a counselor and confidant to many, from the most powerful officials to the quietest part-time staffers. He has a tremendous memory for people; he remembers their family, their birthdays and a million random details of their personal lives.

When a senator died, Brady helped organize his funeral, Simpson said. When Simpson had a major surgery, he told his wife: "If anything happens to me on the operating table where I don't make it back, the first person I want you to call is Bernard. I want Bernard to be one of my pall-bearers."

The picture is clear. This is a man whose work goes beyond a job — it is a commitment, and commitments sometimes require sacrifices.

It seems to me that the kind of commitment that Brady represents is rare and getting rarer. It's not just that people are less committed to institutions. It's that institutions are less committed to them.

When Bernard Brady first entered his service to the Senate in 1979, the DuPont Co. was still a company for which people worked their whole lives. The company's pensions kept many grandparents in houses.

Now DuPont is simply another cog in a corporate behemoth. Employees are considered costs, and costs are always to be minimized in the name of profits — after all, commitment doesn't count in a quarterly earnings report.

I know of virtually no one of my generation who has any intention of working in one job for more than a few years. You get what you want out of a job, then you move on.

This is not all bad. Our more mercenary culture is more flexible, more nimble, more entrepreneurial. It makes less fertile ground for the kind of good ole' boys clubs that enable favoritism and corruption.

Still, I think there is immense value in the kind of commitment that Bernard Brady idealizes.

There is value in knowing where you and the institution you serve come from. There is value in knowing who your colleagues' mothers are, and what church they go to, and when their birthday is.

There is value in community, and in commitment. And I worry many of us are forgetting an important lesson Brady can teach us.

"Honestly, I'm glad I am leaving at the same time Bernard is. I can't even bear the thought of this place without him," said Henry, who is not running for re-election this year. "There will never be anyone like that again."